CASD Administrators: Work Longer not Smarter

It is common knowledge that we have lost a lot of students and teachers under the current administration - enrollment is down by more than 1300 students, and more than 250 members of CATA have resigned or retired. But it should also be noted that we have lost quite a few administrators too - more than 25 between central administration and building administrators.  Some have left to take jobs in different districts, while others have taken a “voluntary” transfer back into the classroom, even though the move comes with a reduction in salary.  When you see a trend such as this, it is time to investigate.  Without putting any of our administrators on the spot, we chose to dig into the Act 93 Agreement for the Coatesville Area School District.

ACT 93 AGREEMENT

What is an Act 93 agreement?  This act was established in 1984 and became part of the Pennsylvania School Code Section 1164.  This agreement in our district includes the principals, assistant principals, director of pupil services, director of special education, director of elementary and secondary education, assistant to the superintendent of curriculum and learning, assistant business manager, athletic director, and those with the title of supervisor within the district.  An administrator compensation plan must include, but is not limited to, a description of the program determining administrative salaries, salary amounts or a salary schedule, and a listing of fringe benefits.  It also needs to include any board decision that directly affects administrator compensation, such as administrative evaluation and early retirement programs.  An Act 93 agreement is not negotiated like the teachers’ contracts, but the board is required to meet and discuss in good faith with the administrators on compensation before they adopt the plan. 

WORK DAYS

Old Agreement

New Agreement

Section B “administrators are employed for two hundred sixty (260) days per annum.  During the academic year, administrators will follow the teacher work schedule as determined by the approved school calendar.”

Section 4 (a) that “generally, full-time Administrators shall work five (5) days per week, fifty-two (52) weeks per year, a minimum of eight hours (8) hours per work day, except as follows:                                  i.            Sick days as allowed in this Plan;                                ii.            Vacation as allowed in this Plan;                              iii.            Holidays as defined in this Plan;                               iv.            Personal days as allowed in this Plan                                 v.            Paid or unpaid leave as required in this plan or under applicable law; Days on which the school district is closed and Administers are advised that they are not required to work, such as the case on certain inclement weather days

Do you see a difference?  It then goes on to state under Section 4c the minimum expectations of this agreement.  They read as follows: “(c) Minimum Expectations.  The foregoing requirements are minimum requirements.   Except when absent in accordance with a lawful leave of this Plan, the Administrators and the School Board recognize that work may have to be performed after school, on days that school is not in session, during the evening or on weekends.”  It goes on to state further requirements of when building principals must be in their buildings.  They “must be available to respond timely to issues arising within the scope of their responsibilities, regardless of when the issue arises”, and they “must be available and must attend meetings, conferences, training and other events which apply to them, regardless of the time when said meetings, conferences or training occurs.”   

 

To help you better understand our concerns with CASD’s agreement, we wanted to take a closer look at other districts ACT 93 agreements in Pennsylvania:

Phoenixville Area School District	Phoenixville’s Agreement does not have a section called “Work Days” but they have one called “Work Year”.  It states that “all Act 93 Members shall be employed on twelve (12) month contracts and shall work all days as approved by the Superintendent.”
West Chester Area School District	There is no section that states “Work Day” or “Work Year”.
Tredyffrin-Easttown Area School District	There is no section that states “Work Day” or “Work Year”.
Eastern York	Not stated
Pottstown	Not Stated
LEBANON SCHOOL DISTRICT	Not Stated
CENTENNIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT	Not stated

These were the only Act 93 agreements we found online in Pennsylvania

As you can see, the language in CASD’s Act 93 plan is very detailed.  Thus, the administrators have no protected time for themselves outside of their work life.  You have to ask yourself: Could this be the reason why so many of our administrators are finding jobs elsewhere or asking to step back into the classroom?  Might this language be scaring prospective administrative employees away from our district altogether?  Are we overworking our own administrators just because the language says we can? 

We believe the answer is YES. Discussions with current and former administrators, as well as data from exit surveys indicate that administrators are overworked, do not have adequate time to devote to their families, and even sometimes have had negative heath implications from the stress of working so many hours with little to no down time.

Many articles reveal what overworking employees does to an organization. After taking a look at a few, the common themes seem to be an increase in staff turnover, a decrease in the quality of work being produced, low workplace morale, an increase in health issues among employees, and more. We suggest our board members take a look at this and work to fix this language so that we can retain administrators and attract prospective employees going forward.

SALARY

Due to the district circumstances and financial constraints, we will not compare the salaries of our employees to other Chester County districts.  However, what we do want to take a look at is why some of these principals may be choosing to go back into the classroom.  

When we took the salary for the top of our teaching scale (step 19 with M+60), a teacher would be making $98,631 per year.  We divided that over the contracted 189 working days and that breaks down to $521.86 per day.  When we looked at the maximum salary that most of our principals and directors can make ($125,00-130,000) and divide that over the 260 working days, that breaks down to $480-500 per day.  So while the principals make more money per year than our teachers at the top of the scale, it is only because they are working more days.  

Teachers also have a set work day of 7.5 hours per day with a guaranteed 30 minutes of duty-free lunch.  We know that teachers often work above and beyond this time, but they are not required to stay later or come back for meetings at night like the administration.  If you break that down, the teachers at the top of the scale are making $69.58 per hour.  We know that administrators are typically not guaranteed lunch and are working well above the minimum of 8 hours per day as stated in the agreement.  Let’s assume that an administrator works 10 hours a day on nights they have meetings or events (and we KNOW this is on the low end).  On those days, they are making $48-$50 per hour.  Not only are they working more hours for less money, they have a lot more responsibility falling on their shoulders as they run our schools. 

LEAVE OF ABSENCE (VACATION/PERSONAL/ SICK/ HOLIDAY)

While we typically can’t compete with salaries in other Chester County districts, we should be able to offer comparable vacation days to those around us in order to entice and/or retain administrative staff.  While looking at other districts plans, it appears that our district limits total vacation/personal/holidays to 32 days while other districts begin at offering 40 days or at least provide an incentive for employees to gain more vacation days after time with the district.

Here is a look at our administrators’ vacation/ personal/ holidays compared to the other districts in Pennsylvania.  

CHESTER COUNTY	Vacation Days	Personal Days	Sick Days	Holidays	Notes	Total PTO
Coatesville	20	2	12	10		32
Phoenixville	24 (2x each month)		12	12 (+ 4 floating holidays)		40
West Chester Building Level/ Supervisors	15(+additional 1 week after 7 years of management team service and additional 1 week after 12 years)		12	11 (total of 16 when adding in breaks listed in notes)	Supervisors and 12 month Administrators assigned to schools are also paid for the whole winter and spring vacation breaks which would add to the vacation days listed under the vacation day’s column.	31-41 (depending on years of service)
West Chester District Office	20 (+additional 1 week after 7 years of management team service and additional 1 week after 12 years)		12	11		31-41 (depending on years of service)
Tredyffrin-Easttown	23 (+ 5 days to be taken during winter or spring recess)		12	13		41
Eastern York	23 (+5 flex days to be used on days when school is not in session)		15	12 (+2 non-work days between Christmas and New Year’s)		42
Pottstown	20 (+2 days after 5 years of administrative service in the district)		12	14		34-36
Lebanon	20 (+1 days after 5 years of administrative service in the district)	3	12			35
Centennial	20	3	12	16		51

West Chester offers staff members that have been with the district additional vacation days as an incentive.  This may be a good option moving forward for our own district as maybe it would help stop the bleeding of our current administration and help them feel that their dedication to our district is appreciated.

To make matters worse, CASD requires administrators to use vacation days when other districts do not. For example, while nearly all area districts close both schools and offices on snow days, Coatesville routinely requires administrators and other employees to report to work, and if they cannot do so, they need to use vacation to stay home, even on days when the state and local government has urged residents to stay home.

CONCLUSION 

Seeing that the current Act 93 Agreement is set to expire on June 30, 2019, we hope to see a fairer plan presented moving forward.  We urge the board of directors to carefully examine the expectations written out in the current Act 93 agreements and compare them to surrounding districts in our area. While we know that asking the board to increase the salaries of our administration will only increase the burden on to our taxpayers, our goal is to see the board offer our administration something comparable in terms of the work day language as well as other items that can be improved with little to no impact on our budget. 

As we were looking at Tredyffrin-Easttown’s agreement, their “purpose” for which the Act 93 agreement was written really stood out to us: “The purpose of this plan is to set forth the compensation program for ‘administrative level employees’ of the school district in order to attract, retain, and reward high quality administrative personnel.”  Let’s make that CASD ACT 93 purpose as we go forward with writing a new Act 93 agreement (even if we cannot do that with our salary, we can surely do that with other parts of our contract) for our current and future administration.  

Just like we should rally around our teachers, we must also rally around our administrators.  Let’s show our administrators that we appreciate all of the hard work that they put in to assisting our students, staff, and parents.  Let’s respect them as people and omit the language that creates an unfair work-life balance that maybe doing more harm than good. It is unfair to expect them to devote time to the families of our district at the expense of their own families.